Lee Hogan The Samsung Wave, the first day out for Samsung’s very personal Bada OS, functions with some dazzling specifications—a super AMOLED screen, 1GHz processor, and a narrow design—but is it really suitable? And, extra importantly, does it have what it takes to compete with mid-variety Android, RIM, and Symbian devices?
Overall, the Samsung Wave is a resounding success for the Bada OS, and we can not wait to see more. It features some spectacular specs—an exceptional AMOLED display, 1GHz processor, and a slender layout—but is this definitely true? More importantly, does it have what it takes to compete with mid-range Android, RIM, and Symbian gadgets?
The Samsung Wave was found to be true to the very best during the first inspection. It’s slim, light in the hand, and has a beautiful, tremendous AMOLED display screen, which even looks dazzling while the device is switched off. In addition, the Samsung Wave feels sturdy inside the hand and truly appears the part with its polished steel frame—basically, the Samsung Wave is a pretty doll.
Once you power it up, that Super AMOLED display jumps to life—and, trust us, it is a pretty sight to behold. The Wave’s 3. The three-inch 480 x 800-pixel touchscreen is both crisp and vibrant, showing colors and information at the maximum first-rate, so much so that the Wave could, without problems, deliver some high-give-up devices—including Nexus One—and make a serious run for their money.
Samsung has, undoubtedly, outperformed itself close to the touchscreen interface on the Wave – it is responsive, tactile, and seemingly wonderful. For instance, if you compare it to the touchscreen fluidity of a device like the HTC Hero, there genuinely isn’t any evaluation – and the Hero, in lots of respects, is generally considered a higher device.
However, it is not the best. For starters, it is very difficult to understand how it virtually works in the beginning. Even though the UI is probably moderately tight, there’s no video creation like the one you get on HTC devices, and you are pretty much left to parent it out for yourself.
There are a few very cool components to the Wave, though. For example, there are two home display modes: The first features five domestic displays wherein live widgets, the FT, and The Register may be stored. The second is similar to a widespread menu; however, it is laid out over three more home monitors and features such as Twitter, Facebook, Address Book, Email and Settings, etc. Switching between the two “display modes” is quite simple; you genuinely press the Wave’s most important button, which is placed in between the Call and End-Call buttons.
Unfortunately, there may be something else amiss with the Wave as well. The integrated programs, consisting of Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail, aren’t very good—in reality, they may be quite infuriating and a little too hard to install for our liking. This is very unfortunate, especially when you remember just how well put together the Wave is physically.
And that is where the Samsung Wave genuinely loses out to mid-variety BlackBerry and Android gadgets—it doesn’t take care of matters in a green way, which, in the long run, makes doing the best of responsibilities—including tweeting or sending an email—extraordinarily exhausting.
Samsung’s apps marketplace—Samsung Apps—is likewise grossly understocked, and you need to dig deep to discover something of a price. That said, Bada continues to be very much in its embryo degrees, so who knows, maybe Samsung will start pumping heaps of useful packages into Samsung Apps soon?
Nevertheless, Bada’s capacity is practically palpable. The accelerometer, for example, is exquisite. During testing, we performed Asphalt 5, which changed into terrific. The sharp, responsive controls are easily on par with the enjoyment you get on an iPhone.
We are looking forward to Samsung increasing this capability in the future.
The UI has more than a few nods to Android. The most distinguished is the drop-down notification bar, which shows emails and updates and gives brief access to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Volume Settings. Unfortunately, the Samsung Wave cannot beat Android in terms of quality, and the TouchWiz UI lacks numerous common first-class features, such as HTC’s Sense UI.
The Wave’s video feature, on the other hand, is among the most pleasant we have on any handset. It allows you to shoot in 720p and at 30fps, which means that the results are superb, to say the least.
The camera is likewise wonderful. While it is most effectively five megapixels, it has sufficiently built-in capabilities—which include touch-to-consciousness controls, Geo-tagging, face, smile, and blink detection, in addition to photographing stabilization – to make it one of the exceptional mobile cameras we have had the pleasure of using.
A front-facing digital camera and a few seriously precise connectivity options —3G, EDGE, GPRS, and Wi-Fi 802- are also thrown in for true measure. Eleven b/g/n to boot, so you’ll continually be capable of getting on the web, accessing Google Maps, and staying up to date with what is happening globally through social networking wherever you may be.
In a nutshell, the Samsung Wave is like a halfway house between a traditional telephone and a cellphone—it has considerably more than the former but not sufficient substance to be considered one of the latter. It is a superbly crafted device with an absolute shedload of features, but its UI, apps, and usability don’t cut the mustard.